Thursday, February 5, 2009

Retraining has never been easy for workers, often stressing family finances. But in this deep recession, going back to school can be an even greater leap of faith. The velocity of recent layoffs means that many businesses are contracting rather than expanding their payrolls. That leaves many newly trained job seekers competing against more experienced workers who have also been laid off.

Still, many people are scrambling to get retrained in hopes of catching the next economic updraft. In Rockford, a city of about 150,000 people about 90 miles northwest of Chicago, 19% of residents have at least a four-year college degree, compared with the national average of 27%, according to the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey.

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Lydia "said that working with AIDS patients has changed her perspective somewhat. It has hardened her where she had been soft, and made her soft where she had been hard." Free for all: Oddballs, geeks...